


vulture culture

by autisticlalna (mathonwys)



Series: DreamOut AU [1]
Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Dream Smp, DreamOut AU, Gen, Light Horror Elements, My First Work in This Fandom, Possession, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:36:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27658270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mathonwys/pseuds/autisticlalna
Summary: He’s started looking over his shoulder. He swears he hears movement, down in the mines, out in the forest, but he can’t find anything or anyone— no mobs are tailing him, even though he swears he sees shapes blocking out the torchlight. It’s starting to get to him. Brick crafts a diamond sword, keeps it close to him at all times, and becomes convinced of the idea that he’s not alone and that he’s being hunted.-it's a fresh start for more than one person. shame one of them has to give up everything for it.(or, an AU where Dream is a mask, and masks need people to wear them.)
Series: DreamOut AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2022380
Comments: 5
Kudos: 55





	vulture culture

**Author's Note:**

> a quick tl;dr: DreamOut is an AU about the concept of "what if Dream IS the mask and he's possessing someone" that was pitched by me and picked up speed in the 77-2 Discord!  
> you can read more about it here: https://autisticlalna.tumblr.com/post/635158092368232448/
> 
> this is a crossover if you squint but it's not super relevant so i didnt tag it. basically if you read the first couple paragraphs and go "hey, that sounds like an old mcyt that happens to have a large amount of spare clones lying around" you are correct, but it's just kinda a fun bonus + was initially a joke suggestion that stuck when we were trying to invent a character and you can just ignore it. it's nbd.
> 
> sorry if Dream is ooc in this-- he's intended to be Kinda A Jerk, but this was also my first go at writing him so im not super confident on how i did.

He makes his own home, far away from the battle, where no one can find him.

His clothes are tattered, but he doesn’t mind that too much. He shrugs off the ruined coat, takes off the cracked goggles, and flops back onto the hastily-assembled bed and stares up at the cobblestone ceiling. He’s alive. The war is over, maybe— he’s still alive, he still exists, so either the war hasn’t ended yet or his side lost. They can’t find him now. They won’t be looking for him, but if they did they can’t find him.

The next few days are weird. He has to figure out what to do next with himself, because he wasn’t supposed to get this far but now he has and he has absolutely no plan at all. He settles for the basics: he has a house (a small and crappy one, but it’s still a house), he needs tools, he needs to get the lay of the land and maybe start a farm or something. Baby steps. He adds some more rooms to his house, starts exploring, starts gathering resources.

At some point, he names himself. He’s built like a brick, steadfast, hard-hitting and hard to knock down: he’s a brick. He’s Brick. He finds a village and introduces himself, and makes friends, and causes a little bit of trouble with stealing crops but gets forgiven for it and trades some random junk he found down in the caves and it’s all good.

The entire time, Brick feels like someone is watching him.

He’s started looking over his shoulder. He swears he hears movement, down in the mines, out in the forest, but he can’t find anything or anyone— no mobs are tailing him, even though he swears he sees shapes blocking out the torchlight. It’s starting to get to him. Brick crafts a diamond sword, keeps it close to him at all times, and becomes convinced of the idea that he’s not alone and that he’s being _hunted._

He comes home one day— his house is looking pretty good now, he’s rather proud of it, it’s got a couple stories now and decorations inside and out and isn’t just a stone box anymore— and his front door is ajar. Brick draws his sword, the diamond scraping against the leather scabbard, and brushes his long hair out of his eyes as he creeps inside. At first glance, there’s nothing wrong: nothing’s out of place, nothing’s missing, there’s no groaning of zombies or hissing of creepers. Maybe he’d just left the door open on mistake?

It takes a bit for Brick’s heart rate to slow. He exhales hard, sheathes his sword, then cards his hands through his hair. He must’ve left the door open. Either that, or someone _did_ find his base but just took a quick look and decided to leave him alone. Maybe one of the villagers had wanted to pay him a visit but couldn’t find him. Maybe he _did_ close the door, but it didn’t latch properly so the wind blew it open. There’s a rational explanation for this, and his paranoia is getting to him.

Brick unloads his inventory into his dump chest, fishes out some iron and some sticks— his pick’s getting low, he’s gonna need a backup— and when he turns to his crafting bench there’s something on it already. Brick frowns a little. It’s a smooth white disk, completely unmarked and, judging from the weight and the noise it makes when he taps on it, made of porcelain. There’s a slight curve to it, and Brick squints as he holds it up to his face to get a better look.

A pair of leather straps lash out and fasten the object— the _mask—_ to him. Brick screams in shock, and the sound cuts off as his vision goes dark.

* * *

Brick can’t see. 

His fingers flex, his back cracks as his body stretches, his chest rises and falls in a relieved sigh. “Well then,” his voice says, and his legs stride over to the wall where he knows his tools and valuables are kept. His hands undo the locks and the chest creaks in a familiar way as it’s opened, and then he’s rummaging around inside it and muttering in a quiet commentary as he looks everything over.

Except… it’s not _Brick_ doing it. Brick can’t see, and he can’t move, and he can’t talk. His body is moving on its own, and it’s _terrifying_ him. He tries to struggle, tries to call for help, but he can’t; it’s like he’s trapped in his own head, like something else has pried him out of his body to settle in instead.

The thing puppeteering him hums a tune as it retrieves his full set of tools, and Brick hears the sound of his sword being drawn as he feels the motion of him drawing it. His wrist twists back and forth as his head tilts back to look at it in the light; his arm lowers, and his other hand taps against the flat of the blade with a rough fingernail before a satisfied smile crawls across his face.

_That’s_ **_mine_** _,_ Brick pleads. He doesn’t know if the entity possessing him can hear him, but if it can it doesn’t acknowledge him. Instead, it twirls the sword in a fluid motion that Brick definitely doesn’t know how to do, and then Brick hears footsteps and the creak of the door closing as his legs carry him outside.

“Well this is annoying,” his voice mumbles in a distinctly American accent. The hand not holding the sword fusses with his hair; it’s grown out since Brick started living here, and the entity’s clearly annoyed with it judging by how it tries to push it aside from behind the mask and fiddles with the straps. For a fleeting moment, Brick hopes it’s going to take the mask off, but instead it grumbles and stomps over to… Brick thinks this is near a window, maybe? He’s trying to picture it, but the whole “not being able to see” thing is throwing him off.

It shoves the sword tip-first into the ground so it can mess with his hair with both hands, a scowl on his face. After some difficulty— it’s hard to work around the mask without dislodging it— it gathers his hair together in a fist, like it’s considering tying it back in a ponytail. Brick’s not sure how he feels about that. Sure, his hair does get in the way sometimes, but he’s gotten used to it and quite likes how it looks; a ponytail might still look nice, though.

His free hand grips the sword hilt and pulls it out of the ground, then raises it so the blade is worryingly close to his other hand.

Wait. No. No! _Nonono don’t do this no—_

His sword is sharp. It’s a single clean slice. His sword is sheathed, the chunk of hair is tossed aside, and his now much-shorter haircut is ruffled as the entity preens in his reflection. Brick is _screaming_ . _Why did you do that?! No!! That’s— I— What the_ **_hell_** _?!_

“Shut _up,_ ” the entity growled in frustration. “Shut _up!_ ” His fist raps against the side of his head, and if Brick was capable of flinching he would’ve. “You’re so _annoying._ Look, I can do what I want, okay? You don’t get a say in this anymore. Sorry, but _I need a body._ ”

Brick wants so badly to rip the mask off, to throw it as far as he can, to run and never look back. He can’t. He pushes all of his willpower into that thought, though; he thinks about breaking the mask, about taking it off, all he needs to do is reach up and undo the straps and pull it off pull it off pull it off

“ _STOP IT,_ ” the mask wearing him yells, and Brick stops thinking.

* * *

Dream groaned as he sat down where he’d been standing and held his head. Or, well, his host’s, but it was _his_ now. He’d been tracking this player for a while— no connections to anybody, out in the middle of nowhere, tall and strong and resourceful and all-around a good candidate— and now he’s finally in control and he’s got a _headache._

It’s taking effort to squish the fearful thoughts of his vessel down. He’s resilient, and that’s annoying. A lot of things about this host are annoying. He’s loud, and fights back, and also his hair kept getting in the way. It’s been a while since he’s had to deal with this, and for a moment Dream misses the docile, thoughtless meandering of the animal host he’d been stalking this one with.

Well, that’s the trade-off. Dream already feels more invigorated from having a _proper_ host again, already feels willing to take on the world. He can do a _lot_ with what he’s got now.

“Hey,” Dream says, loosening his vice-grip on his host’s consciousness for a moment— just enough for him to be able to respond. “Have you killed the Ender Dragon yet?”


End file.
